The Narrows (10 page)

“Just a paragraph? What did it say?”

“It was a follow-up to my story on the missing men. I did a follow-up to see what had come in. You know, what new leads, if any. McCaleb was mentioned, that’s all. I said he came forward and offered his help and a theory but Metro said no thanks. It was worth throwing in because the story was dry as a bone and he was sort of famous because of the movie and Clint Eastwood and all of that. Does that answer your question?”

“So he didn’t call you?”

“Technically, yes, he did. I got his number from Ritz and called him. I left a message and he called me back. So technically he called me, if that’s how you want it. What is it you think happened to him anyway?”

“Did he tell you what his theory was? The one Ritz wasn’t interested in?”

“No, he said he didn’t want to comment at all and he asked me to keep his name out of the paper. I talked to my editor and we decided to keep it in. Like I said, he was famous.”

“Did Terry know you put his name in the story?”

“I don’t know. I never spoke to him again.”

“In that one conversation you had, did he say anything about the triangle theory?”

“Triangle theory? No, he didn’t. Now I answered your questions, you answer mine. Who says he was murdered? Is that official?”

Now it was time to back out. I needed to stop her in her tracks, make sure she wouldn’t hang up and immediately start making calls to check me or my story out.

“Well, not really.”

“Not really? Are you—well, what exactly makes you say this?”

“Well, because he was in perfect shape and he had a young person’s heart in him.”

“So, what about organ rejection and infection? A thousand different things could have—do you have any official finding about this or confirmation? Is there an official investigation?”

“No. That would be like asking the CIA to investigate the Kennedy assassination. The third one. It would just be a cover-up.”

“What are you talking about? The third what?”

“The third Kennedy. The son. John-John. You think his plane just dove into the water like they said? There were three witnesses in New Jersey who saw men carrying their bodies onto that plane
before
it took off. The witnesses have disappeared, too. It was part of the triangle theory and then —”

“Okay, mister, thanks a lot for your call. But I’m on deadline right now and need to —”

She hung up before finishing her own sentence. I smiled. I thought I was safe and was particularly proud of my creativity. I reached over to the passenger seat and lifted the file. I opened it and looked at the chronology. Terry had noted the conversation with Hinton on February 2. The story probably ran in the next day or two. As soon as I got to a library with a computer I would be able to look the story up and get the exact date and read what had been written in the one reference to McCaleb.

For the time being I listed it on the chronology on February 3. I studied what I had for a few moments and started putting my own case theory into form:

McCaleb sees the January 7
Los Angeles Times
story on the missing men. He gets interested. He sees something in the story that the cops may have missed or misinterpreted. He works up a theory and his thoughts and calls Ritz at Metro two days later. Ritz gives him the cold shoulder but happens to mention the call to Hinton when she does a follow-up. After all, it serves Ritz to keep the story circulating in the press and dropping a “celebrity” investigator’s name might help do so.

Hinton’s follow-up story with the mention of McCaleb runs in the
Sun
the first week of February. Less than two weeks later—February 13—McCaleb is alone on his boat when Jordan Shandy shows up on a water taxi and asks for a half-day charter. McCaleb grows suspicious of the man while they are fishing and surreptitiously takes photos of him. A week later Shandy is at the Promenade mall stalking McCaleb’s family and surreptitiously taking photographs—the same thing McCaleb had done to him. That same night someone takes the GPS device from
The Following Sea
and possibly tampers with McCaleb’s medicine.

By February 27 McCaleb has received the photos of his family at the mall. The origin or method of delivery of the photos is unknown but this date is documented by the creation record of the photo file on his computer. Just two days after putting the photos into his computer he leaves Catalina for the mainland. His destination is unknown but his car is returned in dirty condition, as if he had been off-road with it. There is also a record of him having phone numbers for a hospital in Las Vegas and the Mandalay Bay Resort, one of the last known locations of one of the missing men.

Possibilities and interpretations abounded. My guess was that everything turned on the photos. I believed that it was seeing those photos that drew McCaleb across to the mainland. I believed that his car came back dirty after three days because he had gone into the desert at Zzyzx Road. He had taken the bait, whether knowingly or not, and gone to the desert.

I looked at my chronology again and concluded that the mention of McCaleb in the follow-up story in the
Sun
had drawn a response. Shandy was somehow involved in the disappearances. If so, he would probably keep an eye on the media for any updates on the investigation. When he saw McCaleb’s name in the follow-up, he came to Catalina to check him out. On the boat that morning during the four-hour charter he could have seen McCaleb taking his medicine, seen the capsules, and hatched a plan to eliminate the threat.

That left the question of the GPS device and why it was taken during the February 21 boat break-in. I now believed it was simply taken as cover. Shandy could not be sure his entry to the boat to change Terry’s meds would go unnoticed. So he took the device so McCaleb wouldn’t wonder further about the intentions of the intruder if he discovered there had been a break-in.

The larger question was why McCaleb was seen as a threat if his triangle theory was not revealed in the
Sun
story. I didn’t know. I thought there was a possibility that he wasn’t seen as a threat at all, that he was just a celebrity whom Shandy liked outwitting by killing. It was one of the unknowns.

It was also one of the contradictions. My theory certainly had contradictions. If the first six men disappeared without a trace, why was McCaleb killed in such a way that there were witnesses and a body that could possibly reveal the truth? This was incongruous. My only answer was that if McCaleb simply disappeared, then it would spark an investigation and perhaps a second look at his view and theory of the missing men case. This could not be allowed by Shandy, so McCaleb was eliminated in a way that would hopefully seem natural or accidental and below the radar of suspicion.

My theory was built on speculation and this made me uncomfortable. When I carried a badge, relying on speculation was like putting sand in your gas tank. It was the road to ruin. I felt ill at ease at how easily I had slipped into building theories upon interpretation and speculation instead of the bedrock of fact. I decided then to put theories aside and go back to concentrating on facts. I knew that Zzyzx Road and the desert were real and part of the chain of facts. I had the pictures to prove it. I didn’t know if Terry McCaleb had actually gone there or what he might have found if he had. But I now knew I was going there. And that, too, was a fact.

15

B
UDDY LOCKRIDGE WAS WAITING in the parking lot at Cabrillo Marina when I got there. I had called him and told him I was on the move and in a hurry. My plan to hook up with him for further discussion would be delayed. I told him I just wanted to quickly go through McCaleb’s Cherokee and then move on. I knew what my destination was, whether or not I found anything in the car that pointed me toward the desert and Las Vegas.

“What’s all the hurry?” he asked as I pulled up and got out.

“Velocity,” I told him. “Main thing about an investigation is to keep your velocity up. You slow down . . . and you slow down. I don’t want that.”

Before returning the boat keys to Graciela I had taken the Cherokee’s key off the ring. I now used it to unlock the driver’s door. I leaned in and began a general observation of the car before getting in.

“Where are you headed?” Lockridge said from behind me.

“San Francisco,” I lied, just to see if I’d get a reaction.

“San Francisco? What’s up there?”

“I don’t know. But I think that’s where he went on that last trip.”

“Must’ve taken the dirt road way.”

“Maybe.”

There was nothing readily apparent in the Cherokee that gave me a second thought. The car was in clean condition. There was a faintly sour odor. It smelled like the windows had been left open during a rainstorm at some point. I opened the compartment between the two front seats and found two pairs of sunglasses, a pack of breath-freshening gum and a small, plastic action figure toy. I handed it out the door behind me to Lockridge.

“You left your superhero in here, Buddy.”

He didn’t take it.

“Funny. That’s from McDonald’s. There ain’t one over there on the island, so the first thing they do when they get over here is take the kids to Mickey D’s. It’s like crack, man. They get the kids hooked on those French fries and shit early and then they’re hooked for life.”

“There are worse things.”

I put the plastic hero back into the compartment and closed it. I leaned further in so I could reach across to open the glove box.

“Hey, you want me to come with you? Maybe I could help.”

“No, that’s okay, Buddy. I’m leaving right from here.”

“Hell, I could be ready in five minutes. I mean, I’ll just put some clothes in a bag.”

The glove box contained another plastic figure and operating manuals for the car. There was also a box containing a book on tape called
The Tin Collectors
. There was nothing else. This stop was turning into a bust. All I was getting out of it was Buddy pushing to be my partner. I pulled back out of the car and straightened up. I looked at Lockridge.

“No, thanks, Buddy. I’m working this alone.”

“Hey, I helped Terry, man. It wasn’t like in the movie where I was made out to be the creep who —”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Buddy. You told me all of that. This has got nothing to do with that. I just work alone. Even with the cops. That’s the way I was, that’s the way I am.”

I thought of something and leaned back into the car, checking the windshield on the passenger side for a sticker like the one seen in the photo of the Zzyzx Road sign on McCaleb’s computer. There was no sticker or anything else in the lower corner of the windshield. It was another confirmation that McCaleb had not taken the photo.

I backed out of the car, walked around and opened the rear hatch. The storage compartment was empty except for a pillow shaped like a cartoon character named SpongeBob SquarePants. I recognized it because my daughter was a SpongeBob fan and I, too, enjoyed watching the show with her. I guessed he was a favorite in the McCaleb home, too.

I then went to one of the rear doors and looked into the passenger compartment. Clean again, but I noticed in the pocket behind the front passenger seat there was a map book that could be reached from the driver’s seat. I pulled it out and paged through it, careful not to let Buddy see what I was looking at.

On the page for southern Nevada I noticed that the map included parts of contiguous states. In California, near the southwest corner of Nevada, someone had drawn a circle around the Mojave Preservation Area. And on the right border of the map someone had jotted down several numbers in ink, one above the other, and then added them together. The sum was 86. Below this was written “Actual—92.”

“What is it?” Lockridge asked, looking through the car at me from the other passenger door.

I closed the map book and dropped it on the car seat.

“Nothing. It looks like he wrote down some directions for one of his trips or something.”

I leaned into the car and then down so that I could look under the front passenger seat. I saw more McDonald’s toys and some old food wrappers and other debris. Nothing that looked worthwhile. I got out and came around the other side, asking Buddy to step back so I could do the same thing with the driver’s seat.

Beneath the driver’s seat there was more debris but I noticed several small crumpled balls of paper. I reached under and swept these out so I could see them. I opened one up and smoothed it out and saw that it was a credit-card receipt for a purchase of gas in Long Beach. It was dated almost a year earlier.

“You don’t check under the seats when you clean the car, do you, Buddy?”

“They never asked me to,” he said defensively. “Besides, I really just take care of the outside.”

“Oh, I see.”

I started unraveling the rest of the paper balls. I didn’t expect anything that would help me. I had already reviewed the credit-card receipts and knew there were no purchases I could use to pinpoint McCaleb’s location on his three-day trip. But the rule was always to be thorough.

There were a variety of receipts for local purchases. This included food items from Safeway and fishing equipment from a San Pedro tackle store. There was a receipt for ginseng extract from a health food store called BetterFit, and a receipt from a Westwood bookstore for a book on tape called
Looking for Chet Baker
. I never heard of the book but knew who Chet Baker was. I decided I would check into it later when I had time to read or listen to a book.

The rule paid off on the fifth paper ball. I unraveled a cash receipt from a Travel America truck stop in Las Vegas. It was located on Blue Diamond Road, the same street as Vegas Memorial. The date of the purchase was March 2. The purchase was for sixteen gallons of gasoline, a half-liter of Gatorade and the book on tape edition of
The Tin Collectors
.

The receipt placed McCaleb in Las Vegas during his three-day trip. It was another confirmation of what I thought I already knew. Nevertheless my adrenaline kicked in another notch. I wanted to get moving again, keep that case velocity going.

“You find something?” Lockridge asked.

I crumpled the receipt and threw it down onto the floor of the car with the others.

“Not really,” I said. “Turns out Terry was a big books-on-tape guy. Didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, he listened to a lot of them. Out on the boat when he was up on the helm. He usually had the earphones on.”

I reached back into the car and took the map book off the seat.

“I’m going to borrow this,” I said. “I don’t think Graciela’s going anywhere where she’ll need it.”

I didn’t wait for Buddy’s approval. I closed the passenger door, hoping that he was buying my act. I then closed the driver’s door and locked the vehicle.

“That’s it, Buddy. I’m out of here. You going to be near your phone if anything comes up and I need you?”

“’Course, man, I’m around. It’s a mobile, anyway.”

“All right then, you take care.”

I shook his hand and headed to my black Benz, half expecting to find him following me. But he let me go. As I drove out of the lot, I checked the mirror and saw him still standing next to the Cherokee, watching me go.

I took the 710 up to the 10 and rode that out to the 15 freeway. After that it would be a straight shot out of the smog and into the Mojave and then on to Las Vegas. I had been making this trip two or three times a month for the past year. I always enjoyed the drive. I liked the starkness of the desert. Maybe I drew from it what Terry McCaleb drew from living on an island. A sense of distance from all the nastiness. As I drove it I felt the constrictions lift, as if the molecules of my body expanded and got a little more space between each other. Maybe it was no more than a nanometer but that little narrow space was enough to make a difference.

But this time I felt different. I felt as though this time the nastiness was ahead of me, that it was waiting for me in the desert.

I was settling into the drive, letting the case facts rotate in my mind, when my cell buzzed. My guess was that it would be Buddy Lockridge making a final plea to be included but it was Kiz Rider. I had forgotten to call her back.

“So, Harry, I guess I don’t even rate a call back from you?”

“Sorry, Kiz, I was going to call you. I had a busy morning and sort of forgot.”

“Busy morning? You’re supposed to be retired. You’re not running around on another case, are you?”

“Actually, I’m driving to Vegas. And I’m probably about to lose my signal in the dead zone. What’s going on?”

“Well, I saw Tim Marcia this morning when I was getting my coffee. He told me you two had talked recently.”

“Yeah, yesterday. Is this about that three-year deal he told me about?”

“It certainly is, Harry. Have you thought about it?”

“I just heard about it yesterday. I haven’t had time to think about it.”

“I think you should, Harry. We need you back here.”

“That’s nice to hear, especially from you, Kiz. I thought I was PNG with you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Persona non grata.”

“Come on now. It was nothing a cooling-off period couldn’t cure. Seriously, though, we could use you back here. You could probably work with Tim’s unit if you wanted.”

“If I wanted? Kiz, you make it sound like all I have to do is waltz in there and sign on the dotted line. What do you think, everybody in that building is going to be there to welcome me back? Are they going to be lined up in the hallway on the sixth floor, throwing rice or something while I walk to the chief’s office?”

“You talking about Irving? Irving got downsized. He’s running the department of future planning. I’m calling to tell you, Harry, that if you want to come back, then you are back. It’s that simple. After I talked to Tim I went up to six and had my usual nine a.m. with the chief. He knows of you. He knows your work.”

“I wonder how that could be, since I was gone before he was brought over from New York or Boston or wherever it was they got him from.”

“He knows because I told him, Harry. Look, let’s not get into an argument over this. Okay? Everything is cool. All I’m saying is that you should think about it. The clock is ticking on it and you ought to think about it. You could help us and the city and maybe even help yourself, depending on where you’re at in the world.”

That last part raised a good question. Where was I in the world? I thought about it for a long moment before speaking.

“Yeah, okay. Kiz, I appreciate it. And thanks for putting in the word with the man. Tell me something, when did Irving get dumped? I hadn’t heard about that.”

“That happened a few months ago. I think the chief thought he had his finger in too many pies. He put him to the side.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Not because Deputy Chief Irvin Irving had always had me under his heel, but because I knew a man like Irving wouldn’t let anyone put him to the side, as Kiz had said.

“The man carries all the secrets,” I said.

“I know. We’re waiting for his move. We’ll be ready.”

“Then good luck to you.”

“Thanks. So what’s it going to be, Harry?”

“What, you want my answer now? I thought you just told me to think about it.”

“A guy like you, I already think you know the answer.”

I smiled again but didn’t answer. She was wasting her time in administration. She should be back in homicide. She knew how to read people better than anyone I had ever worked with.

“Harry, you remember the thing you told me when I first got assigned as your partner?”

“Um, chew your food, brush after every meal?”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t know, what?”

“Everybody counts or nobody counts.”

I nodded and was quiet for a moment.

“Do you remember?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“Words to live by.”

“I guess so.”

“Well, think about that while you’re thinking about coming back.”

“If I come back, I’m going to need a partner.”

“What, Harry? You’re breaking up.”

“I’m going to need a partner.”

There was a pause and I think now she was smiling, too.

“That’s a possibility. You —”

She cut out on me. I think I knew what she was going to say.

“I bet you miss it as much as me.”

“Harry, you’re going into the dead zone. Call me back when . . . don’t take too long.”

“Okay, Kiz, I’ll let you know.”

I was still smiling after closing the phone. There is nothing like being wanted or being welcomed. Being valued.

But also the idea of having a badge again in order to do what I had to do. I thought about Ritz at Metro and how he had treated me. How I had to fight just to get the attention and help of some people. I knew a lot of that would go away with the badge again. In the last two years I had learned that the badge didn’t necessarily make the man, but it sure as hell made the man’s job easier. And for me it was more than a job. I knew that badge or no badge, there was one thing on this earth I could and should be doing. I had a mission in this life, just as Terry McCaleb had. Spending the day before in his floating shop of horrors, studying his cases and his dedication to his mission, made me realize what was important and what I had to do. In his dying my silent partner may have saved me.

After forty minutes of mulling over my future and considering my choices, I came to the sign I had seen in the photo on Terry’s computer.

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